Facebook Games: My Empire

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Playfish brings ancient Roman city-building to Facebook.

By Nicole Tanner

One thing we see constantly on the Facebook platform are gaming trends. First there was farming; then there were pets. Now, the trend seems to be city-building in its many forms. Started by My Town and Social City, we're seeing a bunch of these games popping up all over. Playfish has joined the fray with My Empire, a city sim with a Roman twist.

What Is It?My Empire is a city-building game where you must construct homes, leisure, and resource generating buildings, but it's different from the other games out there due to the ancient Roman setting. As is the case with all of Playfish's games, the art is in a super cute and polished cartoon style.

How to Play You start off with a small village and a limited number of villagers. The game walks you through the basics of building new homes in order to increase your population, and building leisure buildings, like baths, to keep them happy. There's constantly a "goal" told to you to keep you on the right track, so you're never left wondering what to do next.

Once you get a steady population, you'll be tasked with building a "Wonder." The Wonders are based on real world landmarks, such as Stone Henge, The Great Lighthouse, and the Colossus of Rhodes. In order to build a Wonder you need a certain amount of resources, including wood, bronze, stone, and tar. You can build sawmills, mines, and quarries to get most of these resources, but one of them you can only get as a gift from your friends. This is one of the more aggressive tactics we've seen to encourage people to invite and interact with their friends, as you're basically prohibited from progressing without the help of others.

Another interesting feature in My Empire is the ability to hire a "Tax Collector," who will collect coins for you based on your current population. This is an easy way to generate a steady income of coins to help you expand your empire.

If you've played Social City or My Town, My Empire shouldn't be too hard for you to grasp, and the different setting adds a little something extra to a genre we've already seen lots of.

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